Chapter 25 The Night That Changed Me
LEITANA
I stared up at the high ceiling, every muscle in my body aching like I had fallen from a coconut tree.
Between my legs burned with a deep, throbbing soreness that made me squeeze my eyes shut in shame every time I shifted.
He had taken me again and again until the first pale light of morning slipped through the curtains. Then, almost gently, he had wiped the tears from my cheeks, kissed my forehead, and let me fall into exhausted sleep.
Now the bed beside me was cold.
I was alone.
Cluck… cluck…
A soft tapping at the window pulled my eyes open. A pure white dove perched on the sill, pecking at the glass like it wanted to come in. My breath caught.
Doves were messengers of the Holy Spirit back home. Symbols of peace. Of purity.
It turned its tiny black eyes toward me.
And in that moment I knew.
My purity was gone.
Flown away forever.
“Wait…” I whispered, lifting one weak hand toward the window. But the bird spread its wings and vanished into the morning sky.
A broken cry tore out of me.
“Ahhh…no…no…no…”
The sound came from somewhere deep, somewhere that still believed I was the good innocent girl who had planned to give her life, and her body, only to God.
Hot tears spilled over, racing down my temples into my hair.
I had begged him.
I remembered every shameful word that had spilled from my lips in the dark.
“Belong to the devil… belong to mi devil husband…”
I didn't understand why he made me say that.
But I had screamed it. Meant it. Meant it while my body opened for him like a flower in sin.
I sat up slowly, the sheet slipping down my naked chest, and that was when I saw it.
A dark crimson stain on the white silk beneath me.
My virgin blood.
Proof.
I clapped both hands over my mouth to muffle the next sob, rocking back and forth.
“Papa God… mi sorii… mi sorii tumas… I gave it away… I let him… I wanted him…”
The words tumbled out in Bislama, broken and raw. “Mi no strong… mi let the devil win…”
Another wail escaped before I could stop it.
The bedroom door flew open.
Four maids rushed in, still in their morning uniforms, trays of breakfast and fresh linens balanced in their arms. They froze the moment they saw me: naked, curled into myself, tears streaming, blood on the sheets.
“Ma’am Avery!”
“Oh my god…”
“What happened?!”
“Did he hurt you?!”
They dropped everything and ran to me, surrounding the bed like a protective circle of mothers.
One knelt beside me, gently pulling my trembling hands from my face.
“Shh, shh, little mrs, breathe…”
Another quickly grabbed a soft robe from the chair and wrapped it around my shoulders.
I couldn’t stop crying.
“I… I lost it…” I choked out between sobs. “Mi purity… the dove came… it flew away… I told him I belong to the devil… I screamed it… mi blood… look…”
The oldest maid, a kind-faced woman named Rosa, followed my gaze to the stain on the sheet. Her eyes softened with understanding, not shock.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured, brushing my tangled hair back. “That’s supposed to happen. You’re married now.”
“But I was keeping it for God!” I wailed, fresh tears pouring. “I was going to be a nun! And now… now I let him… I begged him… I said terrible things…”
The youngest maid, barely older than me, sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand gently.
“Miss… every bride cries the morning after. Especially the first time. Especially with Master Ravial.” She glanced at the others, cheeks pink. “We… we heard. The whole villa heard. But that doesn’t make you bad. It makes you his wife.”
Rosa nodded, stroking my back in slow circles.
“The dove wasn’t leaving you, child. It was bringing a message. You’re starting a new life. That’s all.”
I shook my head, tears dripping onto the robe.
“No… I feel different inside… like something pure broke and can never be fixed…”
The maids exchanged soft, knowing looks.
One of them fetched a warm, damp cloth and began gently cleaning the tears and dried streaks from my thighs while another poured fresh water into a glass.
Rosa cupped my wet cheeks, forcing me to meet her kind eyes.
“Listen to me, little mrs. What happened last night was love. Fierce, frightening love, maybe, but love. The master has never brought a woman here before. Never. You are the first. The only.”
I sniffled, chest heaving.
“But… I called him the devil… I told him I belong to the devil…”
A tiny, knowing smile touched her lips though she looked slightly confused about that part. I was confused too, he was not the devil, why did he make me say it?
“And did he like that?”
I blushed, remembering the way he growled and took me even harder when the words left my mouth.
The maids all hid soft smiles.
Rosa kissed my forehead like a mother.
“Then that was exactly what he needed to hear, baby girl. Some men carry darkness. Some women are the light brave enough to love them anyway.”
I cried quieter now, the storm slowing into shaky hiccups.
One maid pulled the stained sheet away, another tucked fresh, cool ones beneath me.
They lifted me gently, like I was made of glass, and helped me into a warm bath that had already been drawn, someone must have prepared it hours ago.
As the scented water closed over my sore, marked body, I closed my eyes.
I still felt him everywhere.
And for the first time since the dove flew away…
I wasn’t sure I wanted that feeling to ever leave.
An hour later I was clean, dressed, and wrapped in more fabric than I had ever worn in my entire life back home.
The maids had chosen a soft sundress the colour of ripe papaya, thin straps over my shoulders, the skirt brushing my knees that still felt wobbly.
Underneath they had insisted on the tiniest lace panties I had ever seen (“French,” Rosa called them) and a matching bra that lifted my breasts like an offering.
Then they dabbed something cool and soothing between my legs, a cream that smelled of aloe and mint.
It helped the soreness, but every step still sent a secret pulse of remembrance through me, like my body was whispering his name over and over.
Now I walked barefoot across the endless green lawns of the villa grounds, the grass cool and perfect under my feet. The sun was high, the sky a bright, careless blue. Palm trees lined the driveway like soldiers, and far away I could see the glint of a swimming pool bigger than my whole village church.
Four maids trailed behind me at a respectful distance, carrying sun umbrellas and bottles of chilled coconut water, ready the moment I looked thirsty or hot.
I was bored.
Not the small boredom of waiting for the tide to come in.
A big, hollow, restless boredom that made my skin itch.
I stopped under the shade of a flowering frangipani tree and turned to them.
“Mi stap here… I no save what to do,” I said softly.(I'll stop here, I don't know what to do) “What people do here all day?”
Rosa smiled kindly. “Whatever you like, little mrs. Read in the library, swim, watch films in the cinema room, order anything you want from the kitchen…”
I shook my head. “I want… something to do. With my hands. With my body.”
My cheeks heated the moment the words left my mouth, because my body immediately remembered exactly what it had been doing all night.
The youngest maid, Clara, giggled behind her hand.
Rosa pretended not to notice. “There are beautiful gardens, ma’am. Or the stables. The master keeps horses. Very gentle ones.”
My eyes lit up. “Horses?
“I can ride one?”
She nodded.
I had only ever ridden the old plantation mare back home, bareback, racing the girls along the beach.
“Yes! Take me!”
Five minutes later we were at the stables, cool and dim, smelling of sweet hay and leather. A groom brought out a small chestnut mare with kind eyes. I stroked her velvet nose and felt something inside me unclench for the first time since the dove flew away.
But even while I laughed and let her lip my palm, questions circled like flies.
I turned to Rosa again.
“Where… where Ravial go?”
Rosa hesitated, for a moment. “To the city, ma’am. New York. His company headquarters.”
“Wanem… what does he do at the company?”
The maids exchanged quick glances.
“He… runs things,” Clara offered carefully. “Many things. Buildings. Money. People.”
“Like a chief?” I asked.
Rosa’s smile was gentle. “Bigger than any chief you have ever seen, little mrs.”
I nodded slowly, trying to picture Ravial, blindfolded and terrifying, sitting in some glass tower giving orders that moved the world. It fit him perfectly, and it frightened me all over again.
I took a step toward the mare’s reins and started walking her in slow circles, barefoot in the sawdust, dress fluttering around my thighs.
Every step made the lace between my legs brush my still-sensitive folds.
The cream helped, but the memory was alive.
I could feel the ghost of him inside me, thick and claiming, and my breath hitched.
Rosa noticed, of course.
“Are you hurting, ma’am?” she asked quietly.
I shook my head too fast. “No… just… remembering.”
Clara’s eyes went wide and soft. “He was… very thorough, wasn’t he?”
I hid my burning face against the mare’s warm neck.
Rosa laughed, low and fond. “Come. We’ll find you a sidesaddle if you want to ride. Or there’s the greenhouse, orchids from every island in the Pacific. Or the library has books in French, English, even some in Bislama if you miss the sound of home.”
I lifted my head.
“Books in Bislama?”
“Just a few,” Rosa admitted. “Master had them brought in the day after the wedding.”
My heart gave a strange, painful flip.
He noticed things like that.
Even while he tore my world apart, he noticed.
I handed the reins back to the groom and turned toward the house, the soreness between my thighs a secret reminder with every step.
I was
bored, yes.
But deeper than boredom was a waiting.
A restless, aching waiting for night to come again.
For him to come home and remind me, in the only language my body seemed to understand anymore, exactly who I belonged to now.